The Tide: Salvage

by Melchiorri, Anthony J

  Shepherd wondered if the AT4s would be enough. Would rocket launchers really matter? All the same, what else could he do? Retreat back to command until the Skulls overwhelmed them there, too?

  “Come on,” Shepherd said, standing. “We don’t have much time. Stay low, stay frosty, and don’t let those fuckers see you.”

  Another pair of Skulls ran across the street, dodging between a wrecked MP Humvee and an empty ambulance. Shepherd waited for them to pass and then sprinted toward the ambulance. He crouched near its front tire and signaled for Bard to come next. The man slid into place next to Shepherd, gasping for breath.

  Shepherd gestured to Wesson. The private sprinted out from under the trees and across the lawn, his rifle in one hand. A shriek echoed somewhere to his left, and then a Skull bounded from another patch of foliage toward Wesson. The private stopped, shouldered his rifle, and fired at the charging creature. The bark of the weapon punctuated the night air. Rounds slammed into the monster, and it went down hard. But other nearby creatures had heard. They barreled from around the street, from the office building Shepherd had just abandoned, and from the trees lining the lawn. While Shepherd and Bard were still crouched near the front tire of the ambulance, two Skulls leapt over the roof of the vehicle, their gazes glued on Wesson. Bard gasped, and Shepherd held a finger up to silence him.

  “No way,” Bard said. He shouldered his rifle and aimed at the creatures.

  Shepherd aimed his M16 in concert with Bard, but both held their fire. Wesson sprayed madly at the encroaching circle of Skulls. Shepherd could see the man wouldn’t stand a chance. He lowered his weapon and pushed Bard’s barrel down. A pang of guilt stabbed through him. The private had trusted him, and Shepherd had failed.

  “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “The fuck there is!” Bard stood, shirking Shepherd’s order, and aimed the gun. Shepherd grabbed the barrel of the M16 and directed it toward the street.

  “Stand down, soldier!”

  It seemed almost a hundred Skulls were now charging Wesson’s position. The first dozen reached him and tore into his body. The man’s yells devolved into gurgles, quickly replaced by the hungry grunts of the Skulls.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?” Bard asked.

  “Shut up and follow me!” Shepherd said. He grabbed the private roughly by the shoulder and led him toward the charred husk of a Black Hawk’s fuselage. Once they got inside, Shepherd started sifting through the wreckage for any sign of the AT4s the 82nd was supposed to have on hand. “If we tried to save Wesson, it would’ve gotten all three of us killed.”

  “I’d rather die trying to save him than let him die like that.”

  Shepherd glared at the insubordinate private. “And that’s why you’re not leading this mission.”

  Bard looked down, not meeting Shepherd’s eyes.

  “We have the rest of the goddamned base depending on us,” Shepherd said. “What do you think happens if we die? Who’s going to stop the Goliaths? If we die, so do other men and women, families, children. Enlisted, civilians. You want to let them all die on account of your bullheadedness?”

  The private exhaled slowly. His head drooped. “No, sir.”

  “Then help me find the goddamned AT4s so we have some real firepower against those fucking monsters.”

  -12-

  Dom loaded the first grenade shell into his FN40 and pulled back the grenade launcher’s trigger. The grenade blasted from the wide barrel with a hollow whoomph and slammed into the first Goliath. A cloud of fire and rubble plumed around the beast’s body. Its two front claws lost their grip on the side of the hospital, and it tilted backward. Gravity did the rest of the work, pulling its heavy body back to the earth. The plates along its chest had been torn open, and its glistening, devastated organs were exposed to the open air. It smashed a police car, forming a small crater in the asphalt. Its enormous limbs twitched and then went still.

  “How you doing there, Chief?” Miguel said between grunts, still desperately holding the door closed to the stairwell.

  “One down, five to go.” Dom reloaded and sighted up the next closest Goliath. It was a mere two floors away from reaching the roof. Glass shards sprayed and fell when it punched through a window, creating a new handhold.

  Dom pulled the FN40’s trigger. The explosive round whistled through the air and slammed against the Goliath’s arm. Bone fragments and flesh burst from the blast like macabre fireworks. The beast’s arm fell away, severed from its body. Its other hand lost its grip with the concussive force of the blast, and the Goliath lost its battle against gravity. While it tumbled through the air, the massive plates and spikes protruding from its body caught other smaller Skulls climbing the hospital. They were knocked off and dropped toward the street. The Goliath hit the ground first, splitting the sidewalk. Smacks of flesh and bone hitting concrete and asphalt followed as the other Skulls rained down around it.

  Dom reloaded and brought down a third Goliath. The beast dropped from the wall in a burst of broken brick and shattered bones. Dom could feel a grin fighting to spread across his face. For once, he felt like they actually had a real, solid advantage against these abominations. That fleeting thought vanished when a Goliath lunged upward and wrapped its gargantuan claws around the lip of the roof. It hoisted itself up, bellowing and snarling. Dom fumbled to reload the grenade launcher. The monster began its charge. He backed away, trying to fit the grenade case into the barrel.

  A low whump sounded to his right, and the Goliath’s chest exploded. A wave of heat rolled over Dom. The concussive force knocked him back, and his fingers loosened around the grenade case in his gloved hand. It fell and rolled at his feet. His ears rang, and he reached to recover the grenade. His fingers trembled with adrenaline, but he snagged the grenade and loaded it. All the while, he watched tendrils of smoke drifting up from the Goliath’s busted ribcage. The beast clutched at its chest, crimson liquid forming rivulets between its bony fingers and from the corners of its tusked mouth. It fell face-first, and a small quake forced Dom to kneel and steady himself. He turned to the other Hunters barricading the door, and Jenna shot him a thumbs-up, the barrel of her FN40GL still smoking slightly.

  “Got your back, Captain,” she said.

  Glenn didn’t look so pleased. “Captain, we can’t hold this goddamned door much longer.”

  “He’s got that right,” Terrence said.

  “Just two more of the Goliaths to go,” Dom said. He leaned over the side of the roof to sight the monster in. But instead of getting a shot off, he jumped back as the arcing claw of a Goliath smashed down like a falling tree. Stone fragments and concrete burst up. The impact sent fractures through the spot where he’d just been.

  The Goliath lunged onto the roof. A second followed closed behind. Dom took his finger off the FN40GL. Firing the grenade launcher at this proximity would easily kill one of the monsters, but it would also kill Dom. He backed away, spraying the closest Goliath with a wall of gunfire instead. The armor-piercing rounds cut through the Goliath’s bone plates, but it continued implacably forward. The second Goliath barreled past the first. Dom dodged to the side, and it careened onward.

  “Move!” Dom yelled to the others. They scattered. As they did, the door burst open. Skulls poured forth, their claws skittering against the roof. But they didn’t make it far.

  The Goliath, carried by its momentum, rammed into the stairwell entrance. It crushed the Skulls trying to escape. Miguel took advantage of the opportunity and launched a grenade at the monster. A geyser of gore and blood shot into the air along with a billowing cloud of dust. The stairwell entrance collapsed around the Goliath, burying the gargantuan body and the Skulls writhing beneath it.

  The second giant Skull, injured but still lumbering forward, lashed out at Dom. He ducked under the beast’s crooked talons and rolled to his left in time to avoid another hammering blow.

  Glenn and Terrence opened up on the Goliath. Bullets crashed into the monster. It
s bloodshot eyes peered around as if it were struggling to choose its next target. The Hunters formed a perimeter around the beast, beating it back with gunfire from multiple sides. It swatted at the air like a demonic King Kong atop the Empire State Building. Backward it went, until one of its talons caught the edge of the roof, and it toppled over, tumbling toward the earth.

  A few persistent Skulls clambered over the edge of the roof, but the Hunters picked them off with ease, sending them back to the hell where they belonged. Dom panted and signaled to his sweat-soaked Hunters to fall in around him once they finished off the last of the creatures.

  Miguel kicked at the charred and bloodied remains of one of the Goliaths. “Chief, didn’t Lauren want a sample of one of these?”

  “You got that right,” Dom said. “Bring some of this fresh meat back for her to check out. I want to know why the hell these guys are popping up everywhere.”

  “On it.” Miguel bent over the glistening entrails of the giant beast and started collecting tissue samples within his vials.

  “Alpha, this Bravo,” Renee’s voice came in over the comm link. “You guys okay? Looks like the Fourth of July over there.”

  “We’re alive and well,” Dom said. He glanced at the remnants of the stairwell entrance, now nothing more than a pile of tangled limbs and rubble. “But we’re going to need a better way off this roof.”

  “What? You forget your parachutes?” Frank’s smooth voice came over the comm link. “I’m five minutes from your position if you don’t feel like jumping.”

  “That’s not going to be fast enough,” Renee said.

  Dom looked at the other Hunters. “Why not?”

  “Your little show seems to have the other Skulls wondering what they missed. I’m watching waves of them headed your way, hundreds deep. Not to mention you’ve got at least two dozen Goliaths coming from separate directions.”

  “Two dozen,” Dom muttered. “Shit.”

  “Exactly. From what I’m seeing through my binos, you guys need to move.”

  Glenn gestured toward the dead Goliath clogging the stairwell. “Want to try blowing him out of the way?”

  “That’ll just bring down the rest of the stairwell,” Jenna said.

  Dom leaned over the edge of the roof again. Sure enough, he could see Skulls already beginning their ascent. Then he spotted the huge holes in the walls where the Goliaths had created handholds for themselves to climb. “I think I’ve got a way back in.”

  ***

  Renee lowered her binos and slipped back down into the Zodiac. The craft bobbed and swayed with the choppy waves.

  “Anything we can do?” Meredith asked.

  “Don’t know yet. Dom still wants us to stay here. Not like we can realistically fight through the streets to the hospital.” Renee turned to Navid. “You still doing okay?”

  “Yes.” He gave her a weak smile. The color in his lips had returned. “Thank you for saving me. I didn’t think the Army ever saw my SOS.”

  “Oh, we’re not Army,” Andris said.

  Navid’s brow creased in wrinkles. “Who are you?”

  Renee shrugged. “Just people with a boat and some guns. Look, the rest of our team is trapped on the roof right now. Even if they get into the hospital, is there any way for them to escape? The streets are flooded with Skulls.”

  “Skulls?” Navid asked, cocking his head.

  “The monsters. The creatures. Skulls.”

  “Oh, yeah. I don’t really know...” He let his words trail off, but then his eyes brightened. “Ah, the T!”

  “The T?” Spencer asked. “The subway system?”

  “Yes, yes!” Navid said. “I used to take it every day. Just a block or so away from the hospital. If they can get down there, they can take the tunnel to the Science Park.” He straightened up and gestured to a drawbridge downriver, closer to the bay. The Museum of Science’s silhouette stretched along the river, parallel with the bridge. “They can come up through there, and we can pick them up.”

  Spencer clapped Navid’s shoulder. “I like this kid. He’s got ideas. We need ideas.”

  Renee nodded and spoke into the comm link. “Huntress, this is Bravo. Can you get maps of Boston’s T system to our smartwatches?”

  “Affirmative, Bravo. Consider it done,” Chao replied. “Bravo, I’m on a private line with you now. Lauren told me the survivors Alpha rescued had a son. He might still be in the hospital.”

  Renee knew what Chao was asking before the question came out. “And you’re worried if you tell Dom that he’s going to tear the place apart looking for that kid at the risk of his own life?”

  “Exactly,” Chao said.

  “You know Dom would kill you if you withheld that information.”

  “Better than sending him on a wild goose chase that kills him.”

  “Dom’s going to want to know,” Renee said, almost reluctantly. “Got to at least tell him.”

  “You’re right, I’ll let Dom know as soon as they find a way back into the hospital.”

  “Good.” Renee glanced at Navid, wondering if the man might still have a few helpful ideas for them. “Chao, where did the parents say the kid was?”

  “They were all holing up in a lab one of the kid’s parents worked in. Apparently, when they were starving, they started feeding the kid rather than themselves. The boy snuck out of the lab; they think he went to get them food.”

  “How the hell did the boy sneak past Skulls?”

  “Hide-and-seek world champion?” Spencer offered lamely.

  “No idea,” Chao said. “But the point is, he’s in that hospital somewhere, either as a Skull or an eight-year-old kid with no idea where his parents went.”

  “Shit. Okay.” Renee glanced at the hospital blueprints on her smartwatch. “Navid, there might be a boy alive somewhere in the hospital. Can you tell me where he might’ve gone if he was looking for food?”

  Navid’s head bobbed. “My first guess would be the cafeteria.”

  Renee scrolled to the location on her map. “Here?”

  “Yeah,” Navid said, his voice lower than before.

  Renee sensed a hint of hesitation in his reply. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I tried to go to the cafeteria when Abby and I were starving, but it was overrun by those...by those Skulls. I don’t know how a little boy could survive that.”

  -13-

  “More Skulls are climbing,” Dom said to the others. “We’re going to need to do the same.”

  “It’s a hell of a drop, Chief,” Miguel said, peering over the edge.

  “We don’t have far to go.” Dom pointed to where one of the Goliaths had punched through the wall. “Just a quick swing into there.”

  Miguel shot him a wary look, both eyebrows raised. The first wave of Skulls were halfway up.

  “Let’s go!” Dom yelled. “Miguel, you first!”

  The Hunter shook his head but leapt over the edge of the roof. He clung to it with his prosthetic, fumbling for a foothold. His boot connected with the top of a window frame.

  “Okay, I got this,” he said. “It ain’t so bad.”

  He lowered himself next to the window and then dove into the hole. He leaned out and shot Dom a thumbs-up.

  “Jenna, get moving!” Dom shouldered his SCAR-H and picked off a few Skulls homing in on Miguel’s position. “Cover her!”

  Terrence and Glenn took up firing positions. They sent several more Skulls to their deaths as Miguel helped Jenna in.

  “Go on!” Dom ordered the other two men to lower themselves in next. A full story under the hole where the other Hunters now were, a Skull screeched and leapt toward them.

  With a squeeze of his trigger, Dom riddled the creature’s body with bullets. The monster cartwheeled backward and slammed into another. They both wailed, crashing into others on their way down, and caused a miniature avalanche of tumbling Skulls. The creatures’ bodies let out a sickening thud when they hit the street and rai
ned down on abandoned vehicles. But the ten or so creatures that had died hardly put a dent in the horde of monsters still scrambling for the Hunters.

  Dom slung his rifle across his back and climbed down. His muscles were sore from the constant running and fighting, and a slight tremor coursed through his legs. His boot caught on a windowsill. The fractured stonework gave way, crumbling. His leg dangled, but Glenn and Miguel reached for him, securing his wrists. They pulled him into the room. Beside the broken bricks and a burst pipe from when the Goliath had smashed the wall, two empty beds were pushed against the wall.

  “Huntress, Frank, this is Dom. We’re back in the hospital. We’ve got just three more labs to go, but with all the Skulls, we might call off the hunt early. I’m guessing the helipad is no longer going to be an option. Can you ID an alternative LZ?”

  “Affirmative, Alpha,” Chao said. He relayed the information on taking the T line toward the Science Park and meeting up with Bravo. “That’s your best option to get away undetected from the Skulls on the surface.”

  “Copy,” Dom said. He motioned for the Hunters to move out of the room. Miguel took point, and they burst through the door. Jenna took rearguard, closing the door behind them as the first couple of Skulls made it into the room.

  The team broke into a jog. They played their rifles around the empty halls. A snarling Skull burst from one doorway. It was quickly knocked back with a burst of suppressed gunfire.

  They came to a four-way intersection. Dom glanced at his smartwatch. “Left here! There’s another set of stairs at the end of the hall.”

  Above them, they heard the scratches and scrapes of the Skulls on the roof. Miguel led the group, picking up their pace, as they ran toward the other stairwell. They rushed down the steps, their boots clicking on tiles. Nothing had followed them yet. Three more floors down, Dom directed them back into the hall.